Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince risks fading into the background of long line of Harry Potter films. It’s not quite the middle, where the terrifying Voldermort makes his return, and it’s not quite the end, which viewers have been anticipating since 2001.
In its book form, masterminded by J K Rowling, it serves to link books five and seven together by slowly revealing more information about Voldermort’s past and how he has split his soul into seven pieces and hidden them as Horcruxes. Whilst Rowling’s slow reveals in each book was genius, keeping audiences guessing right up until the last book, it seems like it’s a harder task for film audiences to keep up with the wider plot, having to wait for more than a year at times between instalments!
It has been suggested that the film, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, is incapable of standing alone as it needs all of what’s come before it, and all of what’s about to come after it, for it to make any sense. I remember the general reaction from my peers at the time of its release was that this particular film was so much part of the larger narrative of the series that the story, in isolation, didn’t really deliver as a film.
Where the film falls down, as with the book, is the fact that the title, The Half Blood Prince, actually performs as more of a sub-plot rather than the main narrative thread. [spoiler] The final reveal, I felt, provoked little more reaction than “oh it was Snape,” as opposed to “wow The Prisoner of Azkaban is Harry’s godfather Sirius, who has been living in hiding as a dog and who didn’t actually murder Harry’s parents!” We’d already found out so much about Snape’s past in The Order of the Phoenix that it didn’t deserve the attentions of the main title.
Anyway, that said, I watched The Half Blood Prince again the other day – hence the very out of season review on it – and I absolutely loved it! I would now put it as my second favourite film in the franchise, second to The Order of the Phoenix (which is also my favourite book).
It was funny, charming, dark, the best acted up until that point. It included everything we’ve come to expect from a year at Hogwart’s, whist progressing and developing as the plot matures and darkens. The ending was thoroughly moving, where all at Hogwarts lifted their lighted wands up to the sky and wiped away the Death Eater’s Dark Mark, showing that when people unite in their love and humanity their light can overpower the intrepid darkness.
Jim Broadbent was as perfect as I remembered him as Professor Slughorn. As were Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as Tom Riddle (age 11) and Frank Dillane Tom Riddle (age 16). The resemblance between the two, in both looks and performance, were uncanny! Both gave delicious performances and were on a whole other level to the other young actors in the movie, watching them was like being transported into an entirely different film.
Also, it's easy to take Helena Bonham Carter, as Bellatrix Lestrange, for granted because she’s a regular feature in the films now. As a result I’d forgotten just how good Bonham Carter was! She was absolutely made for that role. She plays it so completely unhinged, it was a joy to rediscover.
Upon my recent viewing I also found that the general story and plot translated a lot better to screen than I remembered! Maybe as the narrative of the books drifts further and further from my mind I am able to see and judge the films on their own merits (which I always tried to do but it's inevitable that judgments will get clouded).
There were still some awfully cringy moments, however, which you can’t fail to encounter in any of the films. Surprisingly, the cringy bits involved the cool and majestic Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) in The half Blood Prince, mainly in his prying into adolescent affairs of the heart. His observation “you need a shave Harry” to the softer-than-a-baby’s-bottom face of Daniel Radcliffe was unnecessary; he’s growing up, we get it! And Dumbledore’s apology for messing up Harry’s date just didn’t seem natural. As a crude comparison to the book, Dumbledore just wouldn’t say that, and for the purpose it served in adding it, to convey to the audience that Harry is changing from a boy to a man, this is quite obvious in itself, without needing Dumbledore to step out of character in order to spell it out to the audience.
Equally, when Dumbledore asks Harry “I can’t help wondering…” (about Harry and Hermione) the same scenario occurs. It seems to have been added to make clear to the audience, in case they hadn’t already realised, that Harry and Hermione will not be falling in love, she likes Ron and Harry likes Ginny. Again, this becomes obvious as the narrative plays out, in spite of this inquisitive question. Dumbledore would not ask Harry such trivial questions. In the book you get the sense that Dumbledore knows everything. When he asks Harry this question, which most of the audience already know the answer to, it takes away Dumbledore’s seemingly omnipresent wisdom and undermines his role as the informer; it puts his interests on a trivial level and his mind on a par with the slowest of audience members. Dumbledore is better than this.
Anyway, obsessive fan rant over! Up until this point Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was the forgotten Harry Potter film for me. It just goes to show that taking a fresh look at something with fresh eyes can completely change your perspective of it. I just hope that this film does not pale into the background of what will be eight films in total. It can and does stand on it’s own two feet and I hope, in time, it will be remembered as it deserves to be: one of the best Harry Potter films made!
“I generated more material than ever appeared in the books. I thought, ‘Who would ever want to know the significance of all the difference wand woods?’ Now you can go and see. It's such a rich experience to do it this way.” 
